Did you know?
The following is another Did You Know? quiz about Fayette County history.
1. On Sept. 9, 1937, Gene Hasson, a Connellsville native and Major League baseball player, accomplished something that few players have done in Major League history. What was it?
A) He hit for the cycle in both games of a doubleheader.
B) He struck out Babe Ruth five times.
C) He hit a homerun in his first Major League at bat.
D) He got an unassisted triple play.
E) He played for one team, during the first game of a doubleheader. He was traded between games. He then played the second game of that doubleheader for his new team.
2. The July 29, 1940 edition of Life Magazine featured a picture of a Fayette County toddler, with an unusual set of physical traits. What were they?
A) He had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot.
B) His leg muscles were already so well developed, that he could walk, without assistance, at 2 1/2 months.
C) She was covered in hair, except on her head.
D) Instead of her arms being attached to her shoulders, they were attached to her waist.
E) His eyes were literally in back of his head.
3. On Feb. 22, 1960, Life Magazine featured a valuable collection owned by a Fayette County resident. What was that collection?
A) Baseball cards
B) Original weapons used at Fort Necessity.
C) The first hand drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
D) A collection of pre-historic bones that were discovered inside of Laurel Caverns (then known as Delaney’s Cave).
E) One of the world’s largest collections of primitive and archaic sculpture.
4. What is the “biggest” star to have made an appearance in Uniontown?
A) John Philip Sousa
B) Duke Ellington
C) Mary
D) Johnny Weismuller
E) Kate Smith
THE ANSWERS
1. C, He hit a homerun in his first Major League at bat.
While playing for the Philadelphia Athletics, Hasson’s homerun in his first time at bat, is only matched by just over a hundred Major Leaguers. (There have been over 17,000 Major Leaguers in history)
He would only hit three more homeruns in his brief pro baseball career. (1937-1938)
By the way, former Pittsburgh Pirates manager, Chuck Tanner, who recently died, is also on that list.
Except, Tanner’s homerun (while playing for the Milwaukee Braves, on April 12, 1955) was on his first Major League pitch.
There are two Pittsburgh Pirates who swung for the fences their first time up in the majors.
When Walter Mueller stepped to the plate for his first Major League appearance, he, too, hit the first pitch for a homerun on May 7, 1922.
But I consider myself to be very lucky to have been at Forbes Field on June 18, 1961 when Pirate Don Leppert became the second and last Pirate to hit a homerun during his first plate appearance.
(I’ve bragged about being there ever since)
2. A, He had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot.
In Life Magazine’s “Pictures to the Editors” section, there was a picture of a small child whose McClellandtown parents had taken him to the county’s Bureau of Identification to be fingerprinted.
Superintendent Forrest C. Parks, of the Fayette County Detectives Office, noticed the child had one too many fingers on each hand, and one too many toes on each foot.
But the brief item accompanying the picture noted that the child’s hands and feet were, “all perfectly formed and each having a separate joint.”
3. E, One of the world’s largest collections of primitive and archaic sculpture.
The article featured five pieces of sculpture owned by 35 year-old banker Jay C. Leff of Uniontown.
According to the article, Leff had started collecting sculptures in the early 1950s when he bought a few Chinese wood carvings at a curio shop in Virginia.
His collection reached 1,600 pieces by 1960.
ictured in the article were: A Mayan head made of terra cotta, from around 1000 A.D.; a Buddha head from the Gandhara province of India, dated at about 200 A.D. and there was a full page picture of a obsidian and jade mask created by Teotihuacan Indians of Mexican around 500 A.D.
4. C, Mary
The tip-off to this answer was the quotation marks around the word “biggest.”
Mary, a 3,500 pound African rhinoceros was an honored guest in front of the State Theatre as part of a promotion for the movie “Tarzan and his Mate,” in June of 1934.
Mary was billed as a co-star of the movie, which starred Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weismuller.
Weismuller wasn’t with Mary that day, but he had made a Uniontown appearance around the corner from the State Theatre, at the YMCA for a swimming exhibition in 1925.
Duke Ellington, and John Philip Sousa, by the way, did make Uniontown appearances.
Kate Smith, to my knowledge, though, didn’t.
Editor’s note: Edward A. Owens can be reached by e-mail at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
.